To use COM components in your ColdFusion application, you need at least the following items:

• The COM objects (typically DLL or EXE files) that you want to use in your ColdFusion application pages. These components should allow late binding; that is, they should implement the IDispatch interface.
• Microsoft OLE/COM Object Viewer, available from Microsoft at www.microsoft.com/com/resources/oleview.asp. This tool lets you view registered COM objects.

  Object Viewer lets you view an object's class information so that you can properly define the class attribute for the cfobject tag. It also displays the object's supported interfaces, so you can discover the properties and methods (for the IDispatch interface) of the object.